Huawei's tie-up with Leica has led to the Chinese maker outright leading the market in still photography, and with last year's Mate 30 Pro, it also joined competitively in the video space as well.
The Huawei P40 Pro continues that journey, although it's worth noting that it's not actually the best Huawei P-series camera phone for 2020. That's the oddly named Huawei P40 Pro Plus handset, which features a five-camera set-up including dual telephoto lenses, a true first for mobile photography. There's no announced plans for release of the Huawei P40 Pro Plus in Australia at this stage.
Which isn't to say that the Huawei P40 Pro is a slouch in the camera department. Round the back it's based around a primary 50MP wide sensor, matched up with a 40MP ultrawide sensor, 12MP 5x optical zoom periscope sensor and finally a time of flight sensor. It's essentially a tweak of the remarkable recipe found in the Huawei P30 Pro released in 2019, putting Huawei firmly back in the driver's seat when it comes to premium smartphone photography.
I won't mince words here; the Huawei P40 Pro features the best stills camera I've tested on any smartphone to date.
Huawei has added a number of new shooting modes, including – curiously – an underwater photography mode. The current coronavirus issues have rather prohibited my ability to duck up to the Great Barrier Reef to put it fully through its paces, but it's an unusual inclusion if only because Huawei's own warranty doesn't cover the phone itself for water ingress issues. It does warn you that you should use Huawei's waterproof phone case if you're going to use it that way, but still, it's irksome.
I've said it before, but one of the reasons why I do like Huawei's photo app is because it encourages exploration of just what you can do with a mobile camera, from low-light night shots to traffic light trails, monochrome to aperture and more. Pro users can of course dip into the Pro menu and set their exposures precisely, but for the regular camera shooter, you don't have to work all that hard to get some really stunning shots from the rear of the Huawei P40 Pro.
Video wasn't historically Huawei's strong point, with many of its phones providing motion with lots of shuddering effects along for the ride. The Huawei Mate 30 Pro fixed much of that, and thankfully I had few issues with video shooting on the Huawei P40 Pro, which supports up to 4K shooting from either the front or rear lenses.
That wide hole-punch on the front might make you think that Huawei's copied a trick from the Google Pixel 3XL with a wide and ultrawide lens, but instead, it's housing a single 32MP wide lens and a depth sensor for portrait effects instead. Selfies from the Huawei P40 Pro were generally fine, with plenty of realistic depth, as well as a range of weird and wonderful spot effects. You can also ramp up the beauty mode sliders if you crave that plastic skin Instagram look.
The Huawei P40 Pro features a periscope-style lens array for telephoto shooting, but that's been a feature of Huawei flagships all the way back to the Huawei Mate 20 Pro. The new feature here is up to 50x zoom, which is a lower level than, say, the Galaxy S20 Ultra's 100x zoom… but it's equally as useful.
Which is to say that if you're after something to feel rather pervy when you take very long distance shots that look like they fell off the back of a 1990s era monitor, then they're fine, but for practical photo purposes, they're basically useless.

That red splodge there is a flower, honestly.
Huawei's hybrid zoom, using AI and the actual 5x optical length of the lens, goes up to 10x and is far more acceptable for everyday shooting purposes.
The Huawei P30 Pro has remained my go-to phone for night shooting, but the current COVID-19 lockdown has rather put the kibosh on my usual comparative shooting set-up, which involves photography late at night at a local park.
They're all shut, so I had to rig up a simpler test shooting from my deck verandah, putting the Huawei P40 Pro up against its predecessor, the Huawei P30 Pro, as well as Google's Pixel 4XL, Samsung's Galaxy S20 Ultra and Apple's iPhone 11 Pro Max phones.
It is worth noting that every camera tested picked up far more light than my naked eye could because despite neighbourhood lights, it was a remarkably dark night. At least, for once, I wasn't walking around public places at night with thousands of dollars worth of phones in my bag.
First up, Samsung's Galaxy S20 Ultra, a high-cost phone that's struggled in the past with low light shots:

The S20 Ultra stays pretty dark and loses much of the trees around the scene, and that's with its low light night shooting mode engaged.
On to Apple's iPhone 11 Pro Max, a phone that's seen some significant improvements in its low light performance thanks to software upgrades:

The iPhone picks up more detail, but also a level of noise over a 3s exposure.
Google's Pixel phones have long relied on Google's computational-led approach to night shooting. Here's the Google Pixel 4XL:

It is still quite remarkable what Google can get out of almost no light, although as is common for Pixel phones, it does so with some slightly over-saturated tones that don't quite feel realistic.
The P40 Pro is the successor to the P30 Pro, and that's pretty much my benchmark for quick night shooting. Here's the P30 Pro shooting with its "Supersensor" regular lens:

Lots of detail, lots of leaves and just a little lens flare for this shot, which is still ultimately a pleasing affair.
So how did the P40 Pro compare?

The P40 Pro's regular camera does a great job in this case; while it loses the lens flare and a little of the light that the P30 Pro picked up, it's certainly not a worse low light shooter. However, that does rather point to an issue for the P40 Pro if you've got last year's phone because the low light shooting, while still great, isn't markedly better. It's just very, very good.
Huawei P40 Pro sample photos






